Page 86 - Neglected Arabia Vol 2

NEGLECTED AKA HI A
A
Basrah Air Castles
Rev. H. A. Bilkert
w HAT a .^iranut* 11 trend of history is tlii^ wliit’li bind* ilio Kg,

IimiiihI 1 Imivli in Aincma hi (bin ancient land nl Meiiupu*
lamia. The history of uur Church passes in review before ui,
one hundred, two hundred, three hundred years, and we begin
hi feel grown up. But then the history of Iraq passes before us, one
thousand, two thousand, three thousand, yes, live thousand years and our
own three hundred years seem but a day. And how then shall we reckon
the link which binds the two—the Arabian Mission with its short span of
less than forty years. And yet, He who taketh up the nations—and the
churches—as the small dust of the balance, ordained that this old land,
where He was wont to walk with the sons of men, should hear in the
fulness of time of His Son through our old church in a new land. And

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MRS. VAN KSS* SINUAY SCHOOL CLASS
4
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so in this year of Jubilee when our church rejoices in three hundred t
years of growth in the Kingdom, when her sons and daughters con* ]
from the East and from the West to tell what God has wrought, the {
Arabian Mission, youngest of her daughters, comes with her tale of
service and hope. ... • . a 1
Over against the larger canvass of the millenniums since Abraham leh \
his luime a few miles up the Euphrates from here, and the more colorful <
foreground since the days of Peter Minuit, the story of the Reformed i
Church in Basrah is but a stroke or two ot the brush. But it is first <d \
all a story of consecration. Dr. Cantine, whose was the first unwelcome l
foot in this city, won for himself a name and a place through the w<xfc i
of a lifetime. Even now, in his sunset years, he still sets his face toward 1
the East, to the land of his adoption. Mrs. Cantine’s mortal remains rtn
in a friendlier clime, but one who has beard the affectionate remembnu**
of her name from the lips of pashas’ wives and old, black slave woo** ?
knows that this is the land of her heart’s desire. And the silent mouadi ' ;

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